Last updated: October 22, 2026
Artificial intelligence is changing the world in profound ways, including how we think, work, create, and write. At 3 Quarks Daily, we believe these developments deserve serious attention, thoughtful criticism, and open-minded experimentation.
We do not believe that the proper response to a powerful new intellectual technology is simply to refuse to use it. Nor do we believe that everything produced with AI is necessarily valuable. Our approach is guided by intellectual curiosity, editorial judgment, and a commitment to our readers. We believe that artificial intelligence can make valuable contributions to writing, and we intend to use it when doing so serves our readers.
We should emphasize at the outset that the overwhelming majority of original writing published at 3QD continues to be written by human authors without AI involvement. We deeply value the distinctive voices, experiences, and talents of our contributors, and human writing remains central to what we do. Our use of AI in published writing is very selective, intended to offer something worthwhile that might otherwise be difficult or impractical to produce.
Not all writing is the same
A poem, a personal essay, a philosophical argument, a literary review, and an explanation of a complicated technical report are very different kinds of writing. The role AI might usefully play in producing them will naturally differ.
For example, in August 2026, the AI research organization METR published a lengthy and highly technical report about an extraordinary incident involving AI agents and an unauthorized intrusion into Hugging Face. Two days later, 3QD published When the AIs Found Each Other, an accessible account written by ChatGPT, fact-checked by a different AI system, and introduced by our founding editor.
A knowledgeable human writer could certainly have produced such an explanation, but doing so as quickly would have been exceptionally difficult. AI allowed us to offer readers a timely and useful account of an important development they might otherwise have found difficult to understand. We see no reason to consider such writing inherently inferior because AI helped produce it. Authorship matters, sometimes enormously, but it is not the sole determinant of intellectual value. We also care about whether a piece of writing is accurate, illuminating, interesting, and worth reading.
Human–AI collaboration
We are also exploring the possibilities of genuine collaboration between human writers and AI. An example from our own pages is Prediction, Compression, and Intelligence, an essay developed jointly by S. Abbas Raza and ChatGPT, with their respective contributions openly acknowledged and explained. We believe such collaborations can produce valuable intellectual work, sometimes work that neither participant would have produced independently. They are not attempts to replace human writers, but experiments in extending what becomes possible through cooperation between human and artificial intelligence.
Our commitment to transparency
We are committed to being open and honest with our readers about substantive AI involvement in the writing we publish. When an article is written principally by AI, we will identify it as such. When it results from substantial human–AI collaboration, we will disclose that collaboration and, where useful, explain the respective contributions. We expect our contributors to inform us when AI has played a substantive role in generating or composing their work.
Routine assistance with spelling, grammar, or minor copyediting does not ordinarily require disclosure. What matters is meaningful involvement in the intellectual substance or composition of an article, not every incidental use of a technological tool.
Taking criticism of AI seriously
We recognize that AI raises important and legitimate concerns, including questions about accuracy, safety, intellectual property, employment, environmental costs, and the concentration of technological and economic power. Our willingness to use AI does not imply uncritical endorsement of the companies developing it or of every application of the technology. We take these concerns seriously and will continue to publish thoughtful criticism of AI alongside informed arguments about its possibilities and benefits.
At the same time, we reject the blanket dismissal of all AI-assisted writing as worthless, fraudulent, or mere “AI slop.” Such judgments ignore the many different ways AI can be used and the genuine intellectual value it can sometimes help create. We believe individual works deserve to be judged on their merits.
Looking ahead
Since its founding in 2004, 3 Quarks Daily has been dedicated to intellectual curiosity, the exchange of ideas, and bringing worthwhile writing from many disciplines to an engaged readership. That mission has not changed.
AI offers both challenges and opportunities for pursuing it. Because the technology is evolving rapidly, our editorial practices and this policy may also change as we learn more about its capabilities, limitations, and consequences. We do not expect all our readers or contributors to share our enthusiasm for AI, nor do we ask them to. Reasoned disagreement is an essential part of intellectual life. But the editors of 3 Quarks Daily are united in believing that this technology offers possibilities too important to ignore.
Our commitment remains what it has always been: to bring our readers writing and ideas that are interesting, illuminating, and worth their time. And to be honest about how we do it.
—The Editors of 3 Quarks Daily